


Get Well Soon

by discountsatanism



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, TAZ: Dust, based on my experiences as a small town resident, he's an enabler really, i'm the victim here, technically this is travis' fault for ending dust with dylan sick, when i was sick and people would randomly show up with baked goods
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 08:11:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14076654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/discountsatanism/pseuds/discountsatanism
Summary: There’s an unspoken understanding among the people of Carrion Street that if you’re upset or sick, at some point Errol Ryehouse will show up at your door with baked goods(or, if you’re Derek, an unholy amount of fresh fruit), and there is absolutely nothing that you or anyone can do about it.





	Get Well Soon

**Author's Note:**

> i was originally planning to do a longer thing with, like, more than two characters, but then i realized that there are maybe five dust fics out right now and time is of the essence since apparently i'm just gonna fill this entire tag, myself, so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

There’s an unspoken understanding among the people of Carrion Street that if you’re upset or sick, at some point Errol Ryehouse will show up at your door with baked goods(or, if you’re Derek, an unholy amount of fresh fruit), and there is absolutely nothing that you or anyone can do about it.

Dylan Mathis looks up as the door creaks open. Errol stands in the doorway, holding a pie tin.

“It’s pomegranate,” Errol says.

He blinks. “What?”

Errol looks down at the pie. “It’s a kind a’ fruit. I made it. For you. Since you’re sick.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause that’s what you do when folks are sick?” he says. “You make ‘em nice food and give ‘em gifts and such. I’m not doin’ so well on the gift front at the moment, but I do have the pie.”

Dylan takes the offered pie. It’s not warm any more, but it still smells delicious. “I don’t have a fork,” he says quietly.

“Oh! Yeah, that, uh, makes sense,” Errol says, digging through his pockets until he pulls out a slightly bent fork. “This is for emergencies.”

He takes the fork gingerly, and looks down at the pie. “Well, thanks, I suppose.”

“Happy to help!” he replies, and when Dylan looks back up he’s grinning. “I’ll be around sometime tomorrow with the lemonade.”

“Um,” Dylan starts, looking frantically between him and the pie, “the lemonade?”

“Yep!” Errol says. “Got a lemon tree growin’ in the community garden now, and I’ve been lookin’ to give some lemonade away for a while now.”

He has to stop this. This is madness. Can he even eat a whole pie? He can absolutely eat a whole pie, he’s really hungry- but morally, _should_ he? How much lemonade does the man even mean? A pitcher? Six pitchers? He brought an entire pie, apparently under the assumption it would be for one person, so who knows what he thinks is an appropriate amount of lemonade?!

“Thank you, Mr. Ryehouse,” he says automatically, a reflex from years of learning the proper manners for accepting gifts, even if he doesn’t want them.

“Don’t mention it! Uh, I think I can mix the lemonade with honey,” Errol says. “That’s meant to have medicinal value.”

“. . .Sure?” he replies.

“Good to hear it!” Errol says. “An’ make sure to tell me how you like the pie tomorrow so I can make it accordin’ to your tastes the next time you get sick, alright?”

At Dylan’s tentative nod, he waves cheerfully and is out of the room too quick to follow.

“Well, shit,” he says quietly, looking at the pie still in his lap.

He takes a bite. It’s pretty good.

-

Errol stops by the next morning with, thankfully, one single pitcher of lemonade. His eyes light up when he sees most of the pie is gone.

“You liked it?” he asks, nodding to the tin and holding the pitcher out to Dylan.

Dylan, whose bedside table is starting to get full, sets it next to the tin. “It was very nice, Mr. Ryehouse. Thank you.”

“Oh, good,” Errol says. “Did you like the crust? Was it too dry?”

“No?” Dylan says tentatively.

“Aw, you don’t have to be nice if it sucked,” Errol says. “’S not like I can get butter or anythin’, but I’m sure I can do somethin’ about it.”

“It was good!” he insists. “It was fine. You don’t have to do that, Mr. Ryehouse.”

Errol put his hands on his hips. “. . .Alright, not gonna push that.” He nods to the pitcher. “All I got today, sorry. Couldn’t even find the honey, but I did find some mint, and I should have your gift ready in a few days.”

Dylan looks nervously at the lemonade. “How many of these gifts are you planning on, exactly?”

“You don’t like ‘em?” Errol asks immediately. “Geez, really? Shit, I can take ‘em back. You don’t want the lemonade? Was the pie that bad? You-“

“Mr. Ryehouse?” Dylan interrupts. “You don’t need to go to all this trouble, really.”

Errol looks at him blankly for a few seconds. He shrugs. “I like helpin’ folks.”

Dylan doesn’t have much to say to that. The pie was nice, and the lemonade smells good, Errol did a pretty good impression of a kicked puppy when it was implied that his gifts weren’t welcome, and, most importantly, he is an emotionally compromised idiot. “Well, if you _want_ to. . .”

“D’you want a bandana?” Errol asks, immediately. “I can embroider, so if you tell me what you want on it I can make you one custom.”

“Uh. . .I dunno. . .a. . .” Dylan trails off. “A moon or something?”

Errol taps his chin. “I can do somethin’ with that. You want anything else?”

Dylan shakes his head.

“A cup for the lemonade, maybe?”

He was actually planning to drink it straight from the pitcher like an animal, but it seems rude to refuse. “Sure.”

-

Anne gives him the next present.

“Here,” she says, tossing it to him. “Mr. Ryehouse says that he couldn’t give it to you himself due to very urgent detective work and to please not worry about returning the pie tin or lemonade pitcher, that you’re welcome to keep both, and that he wishes you the best.”

Dylan recovers from the shock quicker this time. “Tell him thank you if he comes by.”

Anne turns to leave, but looks back at him from the doorway. “Any particular reason you’re enabling him?”

He grimaces awkwardly. “Shouldnt’a been taught so many manners as a kid.”

“I’ll tell our parents.”

After she leaves, Dylan opens the package to reveal a dark blue bandana with a beautifully embroidered scene of the night sky in grey and white thread, with stars and the moon over a rough version of Dry River and the desert surrounding it.

It’s intimidatingly nice, especially for someone whose sewing abilities stop at mending holes. He’s not. . .entirely sure what to do with it, and settles for folding it into a square and stuffing it in his pocket.

“I’ll thank him later,” he mumbles.

-

A week later, Dylan walks to Carrion Street.

“Hello,” he says, waving to the nearest person he sees. “Do you know where Mr. Ryehouse lives?”

“Errol?” the man replies.

Dylan nods.

“House with the big garden,” he says, pointing to what, when closely examined, is not a large clump of weeds in a vaguely boxlike shape, but, in fact, an actual house. “Don’t touch the peppers.”

“Thank you,” Dylan replies, making his way through the community garden to Errol’s front door and knocking extra hard to avoid being muffled by all the flowers.

The door opens almost immediately, Errol already talking to whoever he thinks is answering the door before stopping to look at Dylan. “Hey, buddy! You’re up!”

“Yep,” Dylan replies.

Errol beams, waving for him to come in. “You look way better,” he says. “Did you like the bandana?”

“Yeah,” Dylan says. “It was really nice.”

“Good!” Errol says. “So, uh, I was weeding the garden, but I got some more lemonade in the cabinet’s if that’s your poison. . .?”

“No thank you,” he replies. “It’s real good, but I drank an entire pitcher of it in one day and I’m done for life now, really.”

Errol shrugs. “Alright.”


End file.
